The present invention relates to a disposition structure of a drive device for a vehicle, such as an electric automobile or a hybrid vehicle, which comprises a drive motor to drive a rear wheel that is disposed in a wheel.
Recently, a technology in which a drive motor to drive a vehicle wheel is disposed in a wheel (a so-called in-wheel motor) in order to simplify a drive-force transmitting system from a power resource to the vehicle wheel has been developed (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication Nos. 2006-248273 and 2006-248417).
A right wheel and a left wheel of the vehicle can be controlled independently by the drive motor provided for each wheel. Accordingly, this vehicle has really effective advantages in its practical operation.
Meanwhile, in a case where the above-described drive motors are applied to rear wheels of the vehicle, there is a problem in that a relatively large-sized drive motors would interfere with suspension links that are provided so as to extend substantially in a vehicle width direction with an appropriate length for properly controlling positions of the rear wheels (such as a camber angle).